press release UN - Vienna, Austria, 15 February 2008
Companies including Microsoft, Manpower and GAP state that the private sector has a critical role to play
Companies including global brands such as Microsoft, Manpower and GAP have come together for the first time to discuss how business can play its part in the fight against human trafficking. The series of meetings concluded today at the Vienna Forum – the first ever global forum to fight human trafficking – with the participation of over twenty companies representing hundreds of thousands of employees across a diverse range of sectors, across every region of the world.

Business leaders acknowledged that the private sector had a critical role to play by examining their supply chains and business practices, utilising their core competencies to fight the crime and driving awareness more widely. A number of individual business leadership initiatives were announced at the Forum:

• The Association of Professionals in Market and Opinion Research (ESOMAR) has agreed to become the “knowledge partner” of UN.GIFT, bringing the resources of its members to the UN and to provide a scientific approach in building a business model for a human-trafficking free brand
• A draft Code for Safe and Honourable Tourism in India has been announced by HH Gaj Singh, the Maharajah of Jodhpur, to begin the process of establishing a new set of standards and incentives for the Indian tourism industry, in conjunction with WelcomHeritage Hotels and the UNODC
• Twidox, the online library resource, is launching a specialist human trafficking platform for individuals and organisations to upload, share and find documents on human trafficking, to act as a unique repository of market and opinion information
• foundercontact International Ltd, the online marketplace for entrepreneurs and business owners, has collaborated with Ontwerpwerk, the internet and design agency, to launch a new online platform to report and search for missing people

The structured series of discussions focused on how the private sector can move beyond existing “corporate social responsibility” initiatives, such as sponsoring shelters and supporting awareness campaigns, and create effective business coalitions against trafficking and channel investment into areas that have historically been vulnerable to trafficking.

The meeting also drew attention to the way the film industry can communicate messages on trafficking – both through underlying themes (e.g., the film “Trade” starring Kevin Kline) and through the use of Public Service Announcements (PSA) embedded in the film itself. A recent two-minute PSA on trafficking in India was played as an embedded trailer in advance of the Hindi film “Welcome”. Released in December, the film has been seen by tens of millions of moviegoers across the planet.

H.E. Suzanne Mubarak, First Lady of Egypt and President of the Suzanne Mubarak Women’s International Peace Movement (which launched the ‘End Human Trafficking Now’ Campaign in January 2006), said: “The Vienna Forum for the first time brings together all the key elements in the fight against human trafficking. None is more important than the business community. The End Human Trafficking Now campaign calls upon all corporate entities – from global brands to small businesses – to sign up to the Athens Ethical Principles to explicitly demonstrate a zero telerance position towards human trafficking, especially women and children for sexual exploitation.”

Lori Foreman, Microsoft’s Regional Director for Community Affairs in Asia, said: “The fight against human trafficking will only be won if more corporations apply their core competencies to this global problem, in concert with the efforts of our government and NGO colleagues”.

Dan Henkle, Senior Vice President of Social Responsibility at GAP Inc, said: “The issue of human trafficking is a many layered one, but we believe that if all the relevent stakeholders come together in a spirit of true partnership we can make real change happen.”

The Vienna Forum is being convened by the United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT) which was established in recognition of the fact that human trafficking takes many forms and that a co-ordinated and united approach is required. UN.GIFT was launched in March 2007 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) together with the International Labour Organization (ILO); the International Organization for Migration (IOM); the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF); the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). The Forum’s private sector panels were also supported by UNFIP and the ‘End Human Trafficking Now’ Campaign.

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